Estraven Lupino-Smith is the October host of If You Got Ears

What are your ideas for in-studio performances: I plan to perform with collaborator James Goddard with our project called Saturniid. I would also collaborate with Aaron Lumley, a double bass player. Other in studio performances would include collaborations with above mentioned guests. These performances would be mainly improvisational and experimental sound pieces with samples from field recordings.

Tell us what ideas you have for programming:
I plan to play mainly my work that is drone/doom/experimental and includes samples from animals that I have recorded or that are part of the Macauley library. Each guest and performance will be asked to use this public archive to draw on for samples from the natural world. I hope the sound work will engage with the ideas of nature and technology, the way our interactions with the natural world are technologically mediated, and that there are many amazing, wonderful and awe inspiring sounds made in nature. The programming will involve some context for the sounds and explanation of the animals and where the samples were recorded, but I don’t intend for this to become a science lecture.

Do you have any prior radio experience?
I was a programmer at CIUT in Toronto for a Punk and Hardcore show and was the Station Coordinator for a couple of years at CKDU in Halifax where I was responsible for some programming and production.

In what way would you help provide a voice for an unrepresented community?
I’m a non-binary femme white queer person. Although there have been strides made in music and sound scenes by women, trans, genderqueer and non-binary folks in the last while, I still feel like it’s important that gender marginalized folks have space to experiment and promote their work, particularly work that engages with technology and sound art. I plan to work mainly with other marginalized folks in collaboration, sharing the space that i’m given to amplify other marginalized voices in my networks and communities.